Late Night Whiskey Talks
by MikaMckeena
Summary: Many things can change a person, the span of years is one of them. Which is the focus for two such souls as different as day to night yet ever so much the same. Over a bottle of whiskey one night, two souls are about to find the truth.
1. Face from the Past

Late Night Whiskey Talks

Notes: Well, it's been a bit from my last fanfiction and no I am not dropping my others. Just a lot has happened and I can't really seem to get into that deep evil mood to write to put all hell on our poor Shiro-chan! –weeps- Yet no fear at all, I got hit anyways to write a odd story of a very unusual crack pairing never seen before or has been seen but not to much to be noted!

Hitsugaya and Tatsuki Arisawa

So let's see how things play out with my little story idea! What might happened with the two dragons?

_So lay me down with a ghost  
'Cuz anything's better than alone  
And how I do say what's over?  
Tell me how do I live on my own?_

_Thriving Ivory  
Better Than Alone_

Late nights were the one time of night that peace seemed to fall on the bar in a murky neighborhood as the for rolled off the river to blanket the land as it done for untold nights left recorded by the native people of this land called England. Mist was the one thing that came with living in land full myths as old as the standing stones just outside the cities with soft eyed dairy cows just gazing out at endless green hills. Yes, just the normal kind of night where scorching jazz echoed in the oak walls of deep russets that needed a good polishing to retain better days. No single soul had been left in the bar at two in the morning as a lone soul behind the black bar was cleaning the surface with a soothing sultry hum in tune to the single clear horn to cry out in the end of the song.

She was a woman just entering her 20's with a spark of a fighter deep in her auburn eyes in the lamp light that made them seem golden hauntingly if you peered at the right angle. Locals' right of the bat knew the woman was not a native of their land with fine bone structure and a lean figured carved out and shaped by years of fighting in high school to now. Hair so black that it looked blue alone when the sun hit it was just brought out more by the deep blue dye added just a few weeks ago for the hell of a change. You sometimes just had to have some shock value in life huh? Many might think her people where short but at a healthy five feet and five inches, many men knew from the toned arms that this was not a female to hit with a fight. More the once the fiery woman had thrown out a man or two for bring the shit to her bar! The name was the truer give away; Tatsuki Arisawa.

Born from the land of the raising sun to the samurai of old times with swords drawn for the very pestle of honor to lord and land along with some many other things history did not record. Many might think this young woman was far from home and why she would come half way across the world to this misty place? Many had asked her such questions on those first greetings in this placed called The Red Baron. Slyly smiling at their peeks into her life, a truthful and blunt woman, she kept it short and sweet and to the point for those listening on such nights. "I wanted to see the world a bit. That's all really." Pouring a beer or mixing a drink with a napkin placed on the bar, they might try to get more from the bartender but most gave up when she only smiled at them secretly. Having come to this place a month after graduating high school nearly five years ago to the very day by her count.

Tatsuki had worked at the bar for a year now and own a small flat right above the building. People thinking this was a normal young woman just taking those first real steps into the big bad world. How wrong those people were about this youthful soul. She had seen war and played a part in it before even turning Seventeen and all the way through of her last tender year in school. Fighting aside her friends and beings known as shinigami to save her world and the afterlife from a mad man on a shot to become a god; Aizen. He had created monsters and twisted people's very souls to try and reach such a goal but in the end he fell by the blade of many and buried under the lives of many he had doomed himself all those years of hellish battle. No one blade could claim the kill for themselves and none ever did that day. In truth, no one can really say who killed that mad man. Soon after, friends and allies buried their dead and morn their lost from the worlds but knowing it was the end, all life was reborn once more in the cycle that kept track off. None of Tatsuki's friends had fallen thankfully but the Winter War had left them change and scarred. Many of her own friends thought that was her reason for leaving Japan, to run from the memories of those blood-filled years. That was far from the case in truth! This was her tale to tell if one in truth came to sit at the bar on a misty evening in the end of summer's touch. If one of her friends or allies came into her life once more, they might learn the truth and one such did…

Dead nights like this dragged heavily in the cooling air of the smoky bar. Golden hued eyes dragged over the few people left before the last call went out to send them on the marry way home to sleep. Ringing out twelve times, the old grandfather cloak kept his time as it had for many years in this bar. Tatskui leaned with her back against the mirror on the east side of the wall, so anyone coming in had to come in the west entrance at all times. This bar had been many things for untold years but right now the old man was the Red Baron of the local hood. Good to be alone with ones silent thoughts and no questions asked about who you were outside those oak doors of a fading pine green.

Tatsuki liked it here just for those simple reasons alone to work. It was laid back but if gave her enough of a income to live well enough with her own place just up the stairs. Brad, a old man who had been in the British Air Force owned the place had gave the woman one look over a year ago and hired her on the spot with no questions asked at all. He knew a battled soul when he saw one from his own years living by the gun in the air. Sighing only a bit at the memory made her smirk just a touch on her strong features a bit. Looking down at the letter from her friend Orihime back home in Japan. The gentle healer was going to school to be a teacher of kids of all things. She had just the right nature for the job to deal with the brats a bit. Ichigo, the leading force in the Winter War had gone over to Hong Kong for a year or two to find him and now was hitting the collage in Tokyo to be a Psychologist. Chad, the gentle giant was in Spain with a rock band these days. The Quincy, Ishida was taking over for his father like he said he would but was planning to hit the political screen in a few years. Everyone had re-found themselves in their lives after the war but it seemed one soul.

"Why does everyone these days seem to want me to pick a path in life? I am only what? 23? I got lots of time for that!" thinking only to herself for the moment as the ticking from the cloak filled the dying room for the moment. "My life is fine for right now, I least I left Japan like I planned."

How in a moment that her life would change was unknown to the woman due to one soul she never thought would step through that door in a moment or two. The brass bell rang out the greeting of welcome as the mist rolled in with his first step of a black hiking boot, a long rain coat kept the chill from his fair skin as the light glowed softly on a crop of silver hair. One thing that set him apart from all others in both world setting and the clear give away to the golden eyes as they locket on the frame of the man. Teal eyes looked at the east to see the woman with out recognized what the years had done to her in maturating from five years ago on one last meeting of all the souls of the Winter War. Tatsuki knew he was one in just seconds in saying his name from full lips

"Hitsugaya"


	2. Drawing Lines in the Sand

Lie awake in bed at night  
And think about your life  
Do you want to be different?  
Try to let go of the truth  
The battles of your youth  
'Cause this is just a game  
30 Seconds To Mars-A Beautiful Lie

Dumb founded might be the only words to describe the expression her well-built features for the moment at staring at the man who was now entering her bar of all places to walk into in London or anywhere from the world on the point to be taken. Gaping open mouthed all the more to add insult to the energy already forming on her pride on loosing her composer in such a rash way as this in front of people who knew her only as the resilient young lady with a nasty right hook to match any man who walked in like nights like this or drank to much for their own good. Tatsuki Arisawa may have change in many ways from leaving Japan those five years ago, humans did change with the passing of time as all mortals did on the earth but to her own knowledge, it took years for those of the shinigami to age or even change. Yet how it that the once small and icy captain had changed was made her question her own mental state for the moment. Even more that maybe someone had slipped something into her water and the woman was having a bad drug reaction! Of all shinigami or souls to walk in on this misty damp night, why was it him?

Hitsugaya and she had never shared too many words at all during the Winter War or much even after it had ended. Tatsuki barely knew anything about him also to add to the fact along with the ice chip he always seemed to have on his slim shoulders at the time of those first crude meetings of all the fighters of both sides of the living and after life. She would herself only keep in the background of the meetings while Ichigo would be saying something as their so called Leader for their team for the human world. Many of the shinigami thought having humans fight along side them as equals was just down right wrong and not needed, they where nothing but trash to them in many of the Reapers eyes. Yet it had also been the Tenth Captain to say something to them on this issue "It is their world Aizen is trying to destroy, they have a right to fight for it as much as we have a right to protect ours." That one statement had broken and quieted many arguments coming out on the spot with Ichigo looking in a deep gratitude to the young man for the moment and nodding. From then, the small band of humans fight with the shinigami on many levels in all three of the worlds in which the Winter War spread out on around them.

Blinking away the rush of emotions for the moment in recalling some those battles that seemed so long ago in her lost youth back in Japan. Yet still that one silver word was hanging in her mind on a golden thread for the moment. Why? It is a simple three letter word that had more meanings and less endings then any other word in known human language. Why was Hitsugaya Toshiro, Captain of the Tenth Squad of the Goite 13 doing in London, England and in her bar? Was he trying to find her at all on some request from the others? Did the shinigami want something more from her? Huffing a bit in the air of knowing full well when ever she kicked the bucket, the kung-fu queen already had a spot waiting for her in the shinigami ranks! Any of the humans who had fought in the Winter War and lived were told this out right on the spot. Like it was some kind of high honor or something that their afterlife was already planned for them with out even asking if they wanted to be shinigami in the damn first place!

Now at this time these thoughts were rippling out in the young woman's mind, one pair of bright jade eyes where adjusted to the light for the moment of the low end bar. Of all places to seek a moment of warmth and a drink to relax had he had come to this run down hole in the ground? Hitsugaya fight a bit of sneer forming on his lips for the moment at the few souls who were sipping away their time in alcohol. Not that he could talk about his own chosen company or a certain Second in Commend who often did the same thing on and off when she could. "She might love this place.....seems cheap if anything I can say and save a few coins for later use. Of all shinigami to be sent on this damn mission, why did the old man have to pick me?" Growling only a bit in his mind at the old man who was the so called mighty leader of the Gotei 13 would send him all the way to this place on a single rumor. Maybe he had chosen the young captain just to fuck up his life more then it already was going on, use him for a good laugh!

Then it was as he came to the bar, which his eyes locket on those pair of amber ones just drilling holes right into his face. What was this woman's problem? Staring right back at her for the moment with the same dead pan look he would give his officers at a meeting or one of them got out of line. Hitsugaya had learned to master his icy dead stare when the right moments where needed for such a look. Yet something seemed oddly familiar about this woman before him with the cropped black hair and piercing burning eyes of molten amber almost they seemed unreal? Clearly she was not from the nation, from her features alone one could tell she was Japanese but there was a touch of something mixed in her just a tad to add some spice to her stature to the onlooker.

"Could I please have a draft beer?" his voice seemed more chilled then normal as if ice might freeze the very words. "Or do you have a staring problem?" Ok so he was being a little rude but this woman looked ready to come over the bar and hit him head on with those clenched fist for the moment.

"Do you even know who I am or recognize me at all?" Tatsuki let her voice snap into a muffled growl of Japanese at him. Caring not how he responded all the more but she had to know why he was here! Clearly from his expression alone at her face, the shinigami male had no memory of her at all it might seem.

This strange out rage from the human woman made the normally steady and centered shinigami captain a bit off his line of thoughts. What did she mean if he knew her? Had they met before hand? Stepping back for the moment to see her little better in the low light of the bar he just walked in. Studying the strong features of the woman but it was those eyes that acted like the first shot of the gun to the clue it might be for the moment. Recalling those eyes once before in one of the last battles of the winter war as she had stood in front of Orihime Inoue to protect her from the coming tides of the hollows. Amber burning with such a fierceness of their own fire, as if her gaze might burn them away to nothing...

"Tatsuki Arisawa is my name"


End file.
